The Kardashians. The Duggars. The Gosselins. I had always wondered why anyone would want to watch the day-to-day lives of these families on their respective television shows. Even more puzzling to me is how viewers actually enjoy the experience. However, over the course of two months last winter, I had to take my foot out of my mouth repeatedly, both for hygienic reasons and so that I would be more comfortable when watching Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
Alaska’s former First Family may not have across-the-board star power like the Kardashian sisters do, but each “character” developed his or her own distinct personality during the course of the show’s first and only season. It was easy to fall in love with Trig and Tripp, Sarah’s infant son and grandson respectively, as well as nine-year-old Piper (the cutest child on television). Willow, who celebrated her sixteenth birthday during the course of the show, is the show’s 21st century teenage presence, constantly texting, badgering her parents to get her a car, and in one scene (playfully) shoving Piper’s face into Willow’s birthday cake.
Palin’s two oldest children, Track and Bristol, while not appearing in the show as frequently as their younger siblings maintain a presence throughout the season. We see Track in the Fourth of July episode, as Sarah’s husband, Todd, grooms Track to take over the day-to-day operations of his commercial fishing business. Todd presents a hard-nosed persona in this episode in order to prepare Track to fish on his own, but in most other episodes he acts like the embodiment of a family man, playing with his children and acting as Sarah’s technical director for interviews in the recently constructed studio on their property. Sarah’s father, Chuck Heath, Sr., described by Sarah as “a true Alaskan” also plays a visible role in the series. Chuck’s roles in the show vary from accompanying Sarah on a hunting trip to reprising his career as a schoolteacher in educating Kate Gosselin’s children about the myriads of pelts and bones on the walls of his house.
While the family dynamic is central to all of the show’s episodes, it was entitled Sarah Palin’s Alaska for a reason. Cameras were, unsurprisingly, focused on the former Governor and Vice Presidential nominee at all times, but she succeeded in making the show at least as much about Alaska as Sarah Palin. In an increasingly urbanized country, Alaska is portrayed as the last frontier, where fishing and hunting are treated as much as sustenance activities as they are sport. The Palins explore virtually every aspect of their life in Alaska over the course of the series, with Sarah in the middle of it all. She operates the crane at a logging site, shoots a caribou, goes whitewater rafting, visits with an Iditarod winner, pans for gold, and climbs a mountain in Denali National Park, all with a trademark smile of unmistakable enthusiasm on her face.
Regardless of what Palin did during the show, the idea that the public can be exposed to a politician for longer than a sound bite or interview is refreshing. Instead of listening to pundits with an agenda pontificate on Palin’s actions, Sarah Palin’s Alaska allowed viewers to look at Palin through a lens that many public servants would not embrace. Palin does an impressive job addressing some of the more superfluous criticisms thrown her way without addressing them directly, such as her children’s’ names. Bristol Bay is a favorite fishing spot of the Palin’s and Piper is a small aircraft commonly used for travel to remote locations in Alaska. She peppers the series with self-deprecating humor, including joking about the typo that led to her tweeting the word “refudiate,” and asserting that she can “see Russia” from various vantage points in western Alaska.
Palin could have easily used her own show as a place to opine candidly on any issue she chose, but instead let her lifestyle make those statements for her. Her pro-hunting, pro-gun stance was evident when she went caribou hunting and every time she opened her freezer, stuffed with packages of moose and caribou meat. We see the Palins pray before meals and before they assist divers searching for gold. Most evident of all, however, were the constant references to self-reliance and rugged individualism, a direct ‘refudiation’ of the big-government policies of the Obama administration that Palin’s supporters so ardently oppose. The show will not tape a second season, which may lead some to believe that Palin is clearing her schedule for a Presidential run. I believe that a bid for the GOP nomination will come to fruition, but will ultimately fail. It would be wise of Palin to run for the Senate or for another term as Governor, in order to shore up a résumé that is lacking in high-level political experience (sorry, Wasilla). Will she end up competing with the Romneys and Gingriches for the chance to unseat President Obama in 2012? Maybe, maybe not. Would another season of Sarah Palin’s Alaska been as entertaining and eye-opening as the first one? You betcha.
